Pakistani army fire on eastern Afghanistan on Saturday killed around 50 people, according to new reports released by Afghan officials on Sunday, with Pakistan demanding “strict measures” from Kabul against militants attacking its territory.
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Border tensions between the two countries have risen since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan last year, with Pakistan claiming that armed groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have been conducting attacks since Afghan soil’s notoriously porous border.
“Forty-one civilians, mostly women and children, were killed and 22 wounded in airstrikes by Pakistani forces near the Durand line in Khost province,” Shabir told AFP Ahmad Osmani, director of information and culture in Khost.
Two other officials confirmed this toll to Khost. Another Afghan official reported 6 dead in Kunar province on Saturday. Pakistani helicopters bombed four villages near the Durand line in Khost province. Only civilian homes were attacked and there were casualties,” an Afghan official said Saturday on condition of anonymity with no further details.
Footage of houses destroyed in the attack was broadcast by Tolo News, Afghanistan’s main commercial broadcaster. “All of the targets were innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or the government,” Rasool Jan, a Khost resident, told the channel. “We don’t know who our enemy is and why we were attacked,” he added.
Hundreds of civilians demonstrated in Khost on Saturday, chanting anti-Pakistani slogans, photos released by AFP show. According to Najibullah, an official with Afghanistan’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the death toll from these attacks is 48 in Khost province.
“Twenty-four people were killed within the same family,” he told AFP. Jamshid, tribal chief of Khost province, also put the death toll at over 40. “Yesterday I went there with other people to donate blood for the wounded in the Khost strikes,” he said.
The Pakistan Army has not confirmed the carrying out of these attacks. Pakistan only asked the Taliban government in Kabul on Sunday to take “strict measures” against militants launching attacks on the country from within Afghanistan.
“Pakistan once again strongly condemns terrorists who are conducting activities in Pakistan from Afghan soil with impunity,” the foreign ministry said in a statement Sunday. Islamabad called on the Afghan government to “secure the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region and crack down on individuals involved in terrorist activities in Pakistan.”
On Thursday, seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in North Waziristan district by “terrorists operating out of Afghanistan,” the ministry said. Refusing to give sanctuary to Pakistani militants, the Afghan Taliban denounce the fence Islamabad is building to secure this long border of more than 2,000 km known as the Durand Line, a name that dates back to colonial times originates.
“Enmity”
Aghanistan warned Pakistan on Saturday. “We implement all measures to prevent the repetition of (such attacks) and demand that our sovereignty be respected. The Pakistani side must know that war is not in the interest of either party,” government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned. “This is cruel and paves the way for hostilities between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the spokesman said.
The Afghan Taliban and the TTP are separate groups in the two countries, but they share a common ideology and rely on the people living on opposite sides of the border. Thousands of people typically cross the border daily, including traders, Afghans seeking treatment in Pakistan and people visiting relatives.